The sinkhole at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green. / Photo from National Corvette Museum

A 40-foot sink hole at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green swallowed eight of the sports cars on display inside the the facility’s iconic Sky Dome Wednesday morning, said executive director Wendell Strode.

Some time before 5:30 a.m. CST, the sink hole started to form and by 5:44 a.m. motion detectors started going off, the museum said. No one was in or around the museum at the time.

When they got to the museum, emergency personnel discovered a 40-foot sink hole between 25 and 30 feet deep, Strode said. “It’s pretty significant,” he said.

The museum issued a statement that said six of the damaged cars were owned by the museum and two — a 1993 ZR-1 Spyder and a 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil — were on loan from General Motors.